Portable railway



JDOLBEER. PORTABLE RAILWAY.

v 'Patentd Peb. .19, 1884.

2 used in rough, mountainous, and wooded land,

, UNiTED STATES T PATE T OFFIC JOHN DOLBEER, OF SAN FRANCISCO,CALIFORNIA.

PORTABLE RAILWAY.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 293,853, dated February19,

. Application filed September 25, 1883. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern Be it known thatl, J OHN DOLBEER, of the c1tyand county of San Francisco, and State of California, have invented anImprovement in Portable Railways; and I hereby declare the following tobe a ful1,'c1ear, and exact description thereof.

My invention relates to an improved construction for railways; and itconsists of stringers with transverse timbers framed into them to holdthem together, and having rails bolted to them to form complete sectionsin straight lines and curves, and their ends so formed that any of thesections may be abutted and secured together to form a continuous lineof railway, with regular or reverse curves at any desired points, aswill be more fully explained by reference to the accompanying drawings,in which- Figure 1 is a View of a number of sections united to form aline of road. Fig. 2 is a plan of one section. Fig. 3 is a sideelevation of the same. Fig. 4. is an end view. Fig. 5 is a view indetail. My railway is especially designed to be where it is desirable toget out logs for milling purposes. 7 In such localities it is customaryto build roads over which the logs may be hauled upon wagons or trucks;or what are known as skid-roads are built by laying logs-transversely atintervals of four to eight feet, so that the log to be hauled may bedrawn across these fixed skids. Both of theseroads are comparativelyexpensive for the short time they are needed, and new ones must be builtas soon as the timber in any locality is exhausted. In my invention Iform a portable railway in solid sections, with all necessary curves,suitable to be laid upon the ground,

with only the work of partial leveling, and

without any gravel or complete filling or grading, so that logging.engines and cars may be run over it into any locality, and when thetimber is exhausted the sections may be taken up by a derrick upon a carand transported to another point and relaid complete.

A A are the stringers, which are made of heavy timber, and of .a lengthequal to that of the rails to be used. When the rails are to be reachquite to the opposite ends.

.struction, when the sections are laid, the ends of stringers arenotched, so'that the end of each one will overlap the next adjacent one,and the rails are bolted or spiked upon them, so that the ends of therails extend beyond the ends of the stringers at one end and do not Bythis conthe timbers interlock or overlap, and the rails from eachsection extend a short distance upon the next following section, wherethey may be secured by fish-plates, so that the whole will be united andform a continuous bearing for the train of cars. The overlapping endsare sufficiently strong to prevent the unequal sinking of the meetingends, and the track is thus kept sufliciently steady to support theengine and cars. \Vhen the sections are straight, the ends will exactlyabut; but when they are ourved,'the endsof the outer and inner stringersmust be out upon a line forming a radius of the curve. By thisconstruction any of the curvesmay be united with the straight sec tions;or they may be united with each other to form any desired arc ofcurvature or to form reversed curves. \Vhen they are to be laid, theyare placed upon a car having a derrick at one end or corner, and a ropebeing secured to the central cross-timber, the section is lifted fromthe truck'and is deposited upon the ground in the desired position. Thecar being run forward upon it, the next'section is placed, and so onuntil the road is laid. When it is to be removed, the sections arepicked up one after another and loaded upon the cars in the same mannerand taken to a new position. Having thusdescribed my invention, what I'claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is- 1. A portablerailway consisting of stringers permanently united by cross-timbers, andhaving rails secured upon them, so as to project beyond one end and notreach the oppothem, and permanently united, as shown, the inner andouter stringers of curved sections, 1 terminating on lines which areradii of the curves, substantially as herein described.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand.

JOHN DOLBEER.

\Vitnesses: H. NoUnsn,

H. G. LEE.

